Questions of our day / Havelock Ellis.

  • Havelock Ellis
Date:
[1936]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Questions of our day / Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE ART OF TRAVELLING go about suffering obvious discomfort in their unfamiliar surroundings and craving (if they are men) for a mutton chop and a bottle of Bass's ale, or (if they are women) for a boiled egg for breakfast. There are those (often American) who go in a compact crowd and are hustled weariedly through museums by a guide who speaks bad English and can nowhere give them a moment's rest, as there are so many other places to be done. They have seen nothing, they have absorbed nothing, they carry away nothing. It was said of some of the young English aristocrats, who in old days completed their education by making the grand tour in Italy, that all they brought back was often only the names of the inns they had stayed at. Of many modern tourists I doubt if even as much could be said. There are so many things that are fatal in the art of travelling. It is fatal if one cannot for the time throw aside one's habits and tastes—literally as well as figuratively—to enjoy what the life around presents. It is fatal if one does not know how to select, remaining content to leave much unseen and undone, and to soak oneself, silently and at leisure, in the things one desires to absorb. It is fatal to go in a crowd of one's fellow- countrymen; as well travel in Regent Street or Broadway. I would go so far as to say that (except in some countries for a woman) even a single companion is a mistake. It consti¬ tutes a barrier. I hesitate to say this for I have travelled so delightfully with a companion congenial or beloved. But such delight is likely not to be the pure joy of travel, the companion is responsible for a large part of it. If one has a companion it is well often to separate. In early days I used to find my old friend Arthur Symons a most admirable travelling companion in strange lands, and from time to time we would separate, each to go his own way. And when I think of the times of most radiant exhilaration I 23
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